Lost Hope
by Paddra Daia-Ruise
Summary: In between going to Pulse and Oerba. No spoilers except one: Lightning's real name just another side quest of some sort. The story is from the point of view of Hope Estheim and Lightning Farron. Indicating HopeXLight... Sorry I fail at making summaries...
1. Lost

In between going to Pulse and Oerba. No spoilers (except one: Lightning's real name) just another side quest of some sort. The story is from the point of view of Hope Estheim and Lightning Farron. Indicating HopeXLight...

* * *

~Hope Estheim~

We were in Pulse, or what Vanille and Fang called, Gran Pulse. We were at the base camp near Yaschas Massif. Snow was sleeping on a log, Sazh and Vanille were looking at the chocobo chick playing around while chit chatting with each other and I was just talking to Light. Fang went to go find some more wood. Its for the night she says.

Nothing much was happening until we heard Vanille's stomach growling really loud. "Sorry! Its just...I'm really hungry!" said Vanille. No one said anything. Light was the one who broke the silence. She got up and told (more like order) me to go with her to get some behemoth meat. It seems that behemoth meat tastes quite good when burnt or smoked. I know it because i ate it the other day.

Light and I went to the Archylte Steppe since thats the place where loads of behemoths were, according to Fang and Vanille. Well, at least I got to hear Snow snoring. When we reached the Archylte Steppe, we were spotted by a large behemoth almost immediately. It was nearly double the size of a normal behemoth, It charged towards us, too bad it didn't know what we could do to it. I immediately cast Fira at it and burnt it's outer skin. The behemoth roared in agony and started thrashing about. Light went to finish the job by slashing the enraged beast. After it fell down, dead, we had to drag it, since it was enormous.

Halfway dragging it, I saw a glowing object in a distance. The way it shines, it reminds me of Serah's crystal tears. I started walking towards it, entranced by it

~Lightning Farron~

I saw Hope walking towards that glowing thing, it seemed like a crystal. I shouted at him not to be reckless, but he was so close to it already. I ran towards him and told him not to touch it since I have such a bad feeling that something bad was going to happen. Just when I shouted, he looked back, but accidentally touched the crystal.

~Hope Estheim~

I looked back at Light. She was shouting at me not to touch that crystal but while looking back, I accidentally touched the crystal. Suddenly everything just paused...like someone is controlling a movie. Light stopped like a statue holding out its hands to me and almost immediately, I was engulfed with a strange light. All I could see was that i was going further away from Light and away from everyone. After the light...nothing.

After I opened my eyes, I had to squint my eyes to see that I was in Cocoon, in Bodhum , the one that Snow, Serah and Light lives in. I was confused. Everyone looked at me like I'm just any other kid, like they don't even know me. I'm a l'Cie, everyone should know me already!

It was then I saw her, Serah. But she looks like a kid, probably only eleven. But why? Isn't she suppose to be a crystal? Then I saw Lightning chasing after Serah. And when I looked behind Light, there was a couple. The woman had pink hair and the man had normal brown hair, it could be Lightning's parents. But how is that possible? I thought they died.

Lightning passed by and then turned around to look at me. From the looks at her face, she doesn't even recognize me. A word slipped out of my mouth. "Lightning"


	2. Meetings

~Lightning Farron~

Here I am with my parents and Serah just taking a stroll along the bridge at Bodhum but Serah started running and I ran after her. Even though I'm quite fast but I can never beat Serah when it comes to running on the bridge. I'm scared of heights!

There was a boy at the bridge. He had platinum hair but had a tinge of blonde with emerald green eyes and (I had to say it... Cute). He looked around my age. If he was my age then he should be going to school same as me but I have never seen him before. He can't be a foreigner 'cause its not even time for the fireworks and thats the only time when foreigners come to Bodhum. And this guy knows my nickname that I gave myself, I wonder how... Must be that idiot Snow yelling my super cool nickname out loud again! "I'm Claire, not Lightning"

He looked pretty shocked

~Hope Estheim~

Claire Farron. So that was her real name. Now that I think of it, this must be the past when Light's parents are still around, when everything was perfect. The past that Light did not want to talk about. I need to find a way to get back to my time where the Lightning I know is.

We started chatting aimlessly. We asked a few questions, no big deal, but she smiles too much, its weird... Or maybe I'm just not used to it. It seems that she is the same age as me...fourteen. Maybe this is seven years in the past.

We only talked a little because she had to go back home. I went to town and tried to find a place to sleep. Luckily a couple helped me. They said that they have a spare room. It seems that the couple turns out to be Lebreau's parents. Their house was behind a bar near the beach. It was pretty awkward when I asked them whether I can help them or not, eventually by giving a lot of reasons, they let me take care of the 'washing the dishes' part. I realized that if this was seven years in the past, Snow should be the same age as Claire. And when I thought of that, Snow, or should I say Little Snow, came running in with Maqui, Gadot, and Yuj to play with Lebreau. He is pretty annoying...no wonder Lightning hates him...

The next morning, I felt there was something pulling my blankets away. I pulled the remaining blankets but to no avail. When I opened my eyes, sapphire blue eyes were on me. I had the shock of my life when i saw that Light had gotten in my room. She just giggled and went out of my room without saying anything. I felt my face go red. She looked kind of cute, giggling and smiling...

~Lightning Farron~

I knew I liked him since the day we met. I guess its like I knew him somewhere...and I love him. He and his cute smile and handsome face and stuff like that. So this is how it feels like, it was love at first sight. When Snow told nearly everyone that Lebreau's parents is housing a guy named Hope, I knew it was him. So i decided to tease him a bit. I went to Lebreau's house at 6 in the morning and went into his room. He looks so cute sleeping all cuddled up like that! So i decided to start pulling his blankets and than stare at him in the face! When he opened his eyes,he literally screamed! I just had to giggle...and just walk away laughing... I felt really bad but his face was so cute.

The next week, Hope was gone. Lebreau told me that he went outside of Bodhum... I felt really empty...in my heart. I knew I had fallen for him.

~Hope Estheim~

It happened so suddenly. I was once again engulfed in the same light that took me away from the Light who is a Pulse l'Cie, the Light I love. This time I appeared in Palumpolum. My hometown. I don't know why did I appear here but it looked the same as when I was seven. I used to play around a lot. This means that its the same year as when I was with the fourteen year-old Lightning.

I saw her, Lightning. It seems that she saw me too. The next thing I know, she was running really fast and hugged me close to her. When she looked up to me, there were tears in her eyes. I was shocked to see her with so much emotion. I didn't know what to do, so I just hugged her back.

It seems that the reality is that I went back to my hometown, which explain why am I here in the first place. It seems that she came here Serah and at the moment she ran off and Light is trying to find her. I decided to help her find Serah.

~Lightning Farron~

I couldn't believe my eyes! Hope is right in front of me! I ran to him and hugged him as tightly as possible, then I felt tears gathering in my eyes. When I look up, he looked pretty shocked. Then he hugged me back. I felt happy to be in his arms again.

I explained to him about why am I here. I had to look for Serah. He agreed to help me search for her. I thought up of my plan yesterday. I promised myself that if I see Hope again, I will, no matter what, confess to him! Since Hope practically lives here, he showed me the way to loads of places. That's how we found Serah.

"Hey umm... Light, can I ask you something? Umm... Do you..like me?" Hope suddenly asked me that. I was literally shocked and caught off guard. I felt my cheeks heat up. Now is the time. "Yes! Of course! As in not the friend way but you know... I 'like' like you... When you left, I... I couldn't stop thinking about you..." I couldn't bear to look at his face.

I felt him come closer. I looked up at him and he was smiling, a real warm smile. He leaned forward and his lips met mine. This is my first kiss and it was sweet. His touch gave a tingling sensation and I wouldn't say that it isn't nice... Its just... I'm not used to it.

~Hope Estheim~

She confessed! But she had tears in her eyes... I had to do something, to make up of my absence in her life. I hugged her and looked into her eyes. I was mesmerized by her. I kissed her. "Sorry for leaving so suddenly... I love you too..." and we hugged once again for a long time. Suddenly I felt that familiar sensation again... No, not now! I was engulfed in that familiar light slowly. When I looked back at Lightning, she was crying. I hate to see her cry! "...Hope... HOPE!" she screamed. "Don't worry... We will meet again it the future."

~Lightning Farron~

No... He can't go now... He said we'll meet again in the future, but what did he mean by that? I couldn't take it and I broke down crying...


	3. Found

~Hope Estheim~

When I came back from the past, Light was just standing there looking at me. I was so happy. I was at the Archylte Steppe once more and Light, the Light I know, was standing in front of me. I immediately ran towards her and hugged her. When I look up to her, she had the shocked face. I just smiled and said "I love you, Lightning". Without hesitation, I kissed her.

"You're that boy from seven years ago... Hope... I remember..." she said after we pulled away from each other's embrace. "So thats what you meant when you said that." she smiled... SHE SMILED! The Lightning I know smiled! I was shocked but I smiled anyway. "I love you too, Hope"

~Lightning Farron~

It seemed that Hope had gone seven years into the past to meet the past me. He told me every thing that happened and its exactly like what I remember. I wonder what happened to the crystal. Now come to think of it, I didn't see it when Hope appeared back to this time. According to Hope, he was gone quite a long time, but to me when he touched the crystal, he disappeared only to reappear nearly ten minutes later.

We decided that we shouldn't talk about this when we got back. Snow would definitely make a big fuss out of it. We just dragged the behemoth's dead body back to the camp to have our dinner.

We took quite a long time to kill a behemoth compared to Vanille and Fang, probably because they have been hunting for ages before the War of Transgression. Fang and Vanille was teasing Hope a lot and, fortunately, Snow is still sleeping. I was just staring into space when I suddenly realized I'm staring at Hope and almost immediately Fang ran to me and started asking a lot of question about what happened during the hunt and stuff like that while Vanille was asking the same thing to Hope.

~Hope Estheim~

I felt like someone in a court room. Vanille was asking me so many questions and I couldn't answer any of it thanks to the deal I made with Light. I can see that Fang is doing the same thing to Light.

When it was night, I crawled to be beside Light and Light saw me crawling towards her and laughed at me, probably because I crawled really weird. We started talking a lot about the past and because from what she said, it looks like I hurt her a lot. I kept on saying I'm sorry loads of times. Light turned to me. She was seriously close to me and she kissed me. Her lips was so soft. "At least you came back safe" she said before kissing my cheeks.


End file.
